Yes I should hope it is too. But I really think it is. Cameron said after 2015 the defense budget will rise in real terms every year. So it should be affordable especially as we will be out of afghan and the economy back on track.

Britain is heading towards a more modern and efficient small - medium sized armed force.

France has confirmed it will cut its defense budget by $4.8 billion. I hear Italy and Germany will also cut theirs.
I expect Greece and Spain have no other options but to cut theirs as they are REALLY f***ed with money.

if the RAF gets a decent number of F-35Cs (65 F-35s) then id be happy. Along side Up graded Typhoons that would be a great Fighter fleet. UCAVs are also planed to complement the Typhoons and F-35s such as Taranis.

AngloSaxonVangaurd wrote:Yes I should hope it is too. But I really think it is. Cameron said after 2015 the defense budget will rise in real terms every year. So it should be affordable especially as we will be out of afghan and the economy back on track.

These are two very big ''will be's.''

And I wouldn't trust a word of what Cameron says.

Last edited by RF on Wed Oct 27, 2010 9:18 am, edited 1 time in total.

AngloSaxonVangaurd wrote:
Britain is heading towards a more modern and efficient small - medium sized armed force.

Small, certainly. Medium sized? More efficient? NO.

If Hilary Clinton expresses concern about British defence cuts - and she is no militarist or Republican - then the alarm bells should really ring.

The idea that the British Conservative Party will look after Britain's defences was amptly demonsrated in the early and mid 1930's. We had disarmament and then appeasement - and then WW2.
And Cameron's appreciation of history is very suspect.

Clinton was concerned leading up to the defense cuts, but is no longer concerned, she said Britain will still remain the United States most important and capable ally.

A small armed force is one like Canada, Poland etc. Britain's will fall between Small and Medium sized.

I would say a fleet of T-45s and Type 23/26 frigates is a very modern and efficient force, far cheaper to run, more fuel efficient, less time in dry docks, smaller crews and far more capable than the ships they replace.

Astute class will never need refueling in their entire life, which means their time in dry dock will be months and not years like it is today for the Trafalgar and Swiftsure class. Our fleet of 7 Astute SSNs will be available at almost any given time thanks to this.

Queen class carriers will cost less to run than our current invincible class while being 3 times larger. They will be more fuel efficient and have only slightly larger crews.

So yes the armed forces will be far more efficient with ships available more often than they are today.

The Air force will consist of two fast jet fleets Typhoon (upgraded) and the F-35C. Complemented by UCAVs. If thats not efficient then what is it?

The Germans plan on reducing their armed forces by 8 billion, cutting man power from 250,000 to around 160,000 troops and putting an end to conscription. They also want to increase their ability to deploy troops from 7,000 to 14,000.

AngloSaxonVanguard, I have never been much convinced by the idea of getting more out of less with greater efficiency. To me it sounds like spin.

Britain still has a worldwide commitment, unlike the countries of Canada and Poland that you mention. A worldwide commitment means the ability to commit to multiple deployments in widely separated theatres, such as say Falklands, Iraq and Afghanistan currently.

But the SDSR still means we have enough troops to fight an afghan style war and do another Falklands style war if needed. The troop numbers are there its the escort numbers available we don't have and until 2020 wont have the carrier to do so.

Britain can still deploy and sustain up to 30,000 troops in a medium scale conflict while engaged in an op like afghan and another smaller less intensive op according to the SDSR. Thats almost twice the size of the Canadian Army and nearly double the number of troops deployed to the Falklands. The numbers are there, the ships arnet anymore so Britain will have to rely on allies to provide a handful of escorts if ever a major British task-force was to set sail.

SDSR reduced maximum sustainable forces deployed from 45,000 to 30,000. That means Britain will still be the leading military power in Europe in terms of power-projection and the second most powerful in the world after the USA. For our small to medium sized military thats very efficient!!!

A T-45 will cost less to run than 2 T-42s, while also spending far less time in dry-dock thanks to modern tech, thus allowing a T-45 to be available for conflict far more often than a T-42 while at the same time being more powerful and effective than almost the entire fleet of T-42s ever built!!!

Thats efficiency!!! Cheaper, more available, more powerful. Only problem is hull numbers are too low.

I'm happy with 6 T-45s and 12 T-26s, thats enough to protect a Carrier task force, and patrol our trade routes easily!!! 18 major escort hulls are fine!! The French only have 12 or so. But The RN needs some smaller cheaper hulls like a Sloop class ...(or like the French light frigate force)

About 6 - 8 of these to replace the river class patrol ships. This way instead of sending a bloody T-26 frigate to hunt pirates in speed boats where a T-26s sophisticated weaponry is just put to waste, send a Sloop keeping the major escorts available for the bigger jobs.

Also remember when the Iranians kidnapped our sailors? well they were kidnapped because the T-22 frigate was too large for the waters and was out of reach and unable to support the Marines in that type of situation. Now if that T-22 frigate was a sloop or light frigate, it would have been able to protect those sailors and that shit wouldn't of happened!!!

Remember the C3 concept of the FSC? if the C3 does get built to replace the minesweeper, survey and river class patrol fleet then the SDSR reducing the major escort fleet to 18 hulls may mean the RN will always have enough escorts available to fully mobalise a 100% British task force. But as long as we send destroyers and frigates to the gulf and Indian ocean to hunt prirates and protect oil then too few major escorts will be available for serious conflicts....

Germany has never needed a large navy. Bismarck understood that, the Kaiser and Hitler didn't. And Germany today has no need for large naval forces, it doesn't have the overseas commitments that require it.

AngloSaxonVangaurd wrote:But the SDSR still means we have enough troops to fight an afghan style war and do another Falklands style war if needed.

This post tries to justify the defence cuts by arguing that the forces are more efficient, and I repeat that this argument is spin of the sort that politicians resort to. Without these cuts Britain's armed forces are unable to simultaneously maintain serious commitments in Afghanistan, Iraq, Falklands, Germany and Belize. Britain has largely withdrawn from Iraq too early, with near disastrous results in and around Basra. The war in Afghanistan is not being won. The defence of the Falklands is on a ''care and maintenance basis'' in the hope that there is no future threat from Argentina.

No matter how the remaining forces are being presented they will not be sufficient for the worldwide roles Britain needs to play if it is to have a genuinely independent role in the world.

Last edited by RF on Thu Oct 28, 2010 8:55 am, edited 1 time in total.

AngloSaxonVangaurd wrote:
Also remember when the Iranians kidnapped our sailors? well they were kidnapped because the T-22 frigate was too large for the waters and was out of reach and unable to support the Marines in that type of situation. Now if that T-22 frigate was a sloop or light frigate, it would have been able to protect those sailors and that shit wouldn't of happened!!!

''That shit'' happened because those sailors got their navigation wrong and strayed into Iranian territorial waters. They shouldn't have been where they were and any vessel sent into rescue them, T 22, light frigate, sloop or motor boat or whatever would similary be invading Iranian territory.